Knowable Magazine

09/25/2025

From monkeys washing potatoes to cockatoos raiding trash cans, socially spread behaviors allow creatures to adapt more rapidly to changing environments than conventional evolution would allow. But the traits are also more easily lost.

From monkeys washing potatoes to cockatoos raiding trash cans, socially spread behaviors allow creatures to adapt more rapidly to changing environments than conventional evolution would allow. But…

09/24/2025

👀 On our radar: Tipping points in our climate predictions are both wildly dramatic and wildly uncertain. Can mathematicians make them useful?

In Quanta Magazine, Gregory Barber writes:

“Tipping points often capture the worst-case scenarios of climate models: the reorganization of the world we know, and the human civilization we’ve built within it, into a new equilibrium state — an unimaginable, frightening unknown.

Yet the math of tipping points is fraught with uncertainty.”

Read more:

Tipping points in our climate predictions are both wildly dramatic and wildly uncertain. Can mathematicians make them useful?

09/24/2025

In a citizen science project, thousands of pet dogs are helping scientists to understand what happens to memory and cognition in old age.

In a citizen science project, thousands of pet dogs are helping scientists to understand what happens to memory and cognition in old age

09/23/2025

Marketed to meat lovers, plant-based burgers like Impossible and Beyond claim to taste like the real thing and to have far lighter environmental footprints. Here’s what the numbers have to say.

09/22/2025

In polar bears, dolphins, baboons and more, molecular signatures of aging are changing how conservationists assess population health, resilience and risk. ✍️ Elie Dolgin

In polar bears, dolphins, baboons and more, molecular signatures of aging are changing how conservationists assess population health, resilience and risk

09/21/2025

How much weight can a giant water lily hold? A whole lot more than you might think.

—via Smithsonian Magazine

Now in its third year, the Waterlily Weigh-Off invites public gardens and zoos to show off the strength of their aquatic plants

09/20/2025

At the end of their lives, sunlike stars metamorphose into glowing shells of gas — perhaps shaped by unseen companions. ✍️ Dana Mackenzie

At the end of their lives, sunlike stars metamorphose into glowing shells of gas — perhaps shaped by unseen companions

09/19/2025

👀 On our radar: Brazil’s meteorite mavens

Sam Cowie writes in the The New York Times:

“In recent years, meteorites have ignited a quiet conflict in Brazil. Scientists seek to study them, collectors hope to purchase them and the often rural local residents who discover them find themselves caught in the middle.”

Read more:

An all-female research group, As Meteoriticas, scours the South American country’s interior aiming to preserve meteorites for scientific study and public display.

09/19/2025

The techniques of archaeology, usually used to study the past, also illuminate the experiences of today’s displaced people.

✍️ Carolyn Wilke

The techniques of archaeology, usually used to study the past, also illuminate the experiences of today’s displaced people

09/18/2025

“To understand the forces that drive even the most well-intentioned therapists from insurance networks, ProPublica plunged into a problem most often explored in statistics and one-off perspectives. Reporters spoke to hundreds of providers in nearly all 50 states, from rural communities to big cities.

The interviews underscore how the nation’s insurers — quietly, and with minimal pushback from lawmakers and regulators — have assumed an outsize role in mental health care.”

👀 On our radar: Why do so few therapists take insurance?, via ProPublica

Read more:

Those who need therapy often have to pay out of pocket or go without care, even if they have health insurance. Hundreds of mental health providers told us they fled networks because insurers made their jobs impossible and their lives miserable.

09/17/2025

A warm congratulations to special contributor Amber Dance for her well-deserved recognition at the National Federation of Press Women's 2025 National Communications Contest!

Her story, “Studies of migraine’s many triggers offer paths to new therapies” previously won First Place for Specialty Articles: Health at the California Press Women’s 2025 Professional Communications Awards. We are thrilled to see her work recognized on a national level.

If you suffer from migraines, or know someone who does, her story is an essential read. Link in comments.

09/17/2025

Mindfulness, detachment, selecting off-time activities with care: Here are evidence-based strategies to achieve healthy work-life balance.

✍️ Chris Woolston

Mindfulness, detachment, selecting off-time activities with care: Here are evidence-based strategies to achieve healthy work-life balance